Saturday 22 Jun 2013

Saturday Reading: Ezra 9:10-15

Key Verse: Ezra 9:13
13  And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as this;

Devotion:
No matter how we try to hide our sins they will always be seen by God unless they are covered by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is just and hence must carry out judgement against our sins unless they are covered and already paid for. The sacrifices of the early church were to appease God as the people came with a penitent heart to Him to ask for forgiveness, sacrificing a sinless, guiltless lamb in their stead. Christ came forward on our behalf and offered Himself up as the perfect, sinless, guiltless Lamb in our stead knowing that that would be the only way to cover our sins completely.

If God had levelled the just punishment on the people of Israel for the sins that they did then they would have been wiped out before they got across the river Jordan in the first place. But it was because of the great mercy of our God that He waited until the sinless Lamb was sacrificed for our sins. But that does not mean that we all automatically get a free pass because we still do have to come to Him with that penitent heart to ask for that forgiveness. Christ may have died for everyone, but until we come and lay our sins down before Him He is not able to say that He has paid for those sins.

There is no sin that His blood cannot cover as long as it is brought to Him. If we try to sweep our sins under the carpet instead of bringing them to Him then it is the carpet that we are offering to pay for our sins. Nothing other than Christ is the perfect sacrifice and we need to remember that continually. We deserve to pay for what we have done wrong, but Christ has already taken the punishment on our behalf. Trusting and believing in Him shows that we acknowledge His sacrifice and we trust Him to cover those sins with His grace and mercy.

We do not have to continually go back and break the commandments just so that we can say that Christ has forgiven us! We do not have to sin just so that we can have something to cover. We have done enough wrong in our lives already – we don’t have to continue sinning. It is hard to not give in when we see others doing what they will, but we can rise above that and know that we love Christ and show Him we do by not sinning in the first place.

Points to Ponder:
Do you bring your sins to Christ?

Are you trying to have to bring less to Him day by day?